7. Fanning stayed behind in Lorient, and Jones figures no further in his memoirs.
8. Life and Correspondence of John Paul Jones, 387. And for details on Catherine II, see Robert K. Massie’s masterful Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (New York: Random House, 2011). Her intersections with Jones’s life are in 509–514.
9. The letters are reprinted in, among other places, Massie, Catherine the Great, 511.
10. The historical record has conflicting translated spellings of these Russian names; I opted for the spellings that seem most authentic.
11. There is some dispute over exactly when this occurred. I use Morison’s timing, but Evan Thomas writes in John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003) that he believes it occurred on the next night, after the Turkish fleet had moved westward under the protection of the fort.
12. Details of Taylor’s trip are drawn from chapter 25 of de Koven, Life and Letters.
8. WAR IN CUBA, PEACE IN PARIS
1. All quotes attributed to Elsie Porter Mende are drawn from her unpublished diaries, April through August 1898.
2. It’s unclear who this is. She didn’t identify him further in the diaries, but based on other references in her diaries it seems to have been Lieutenant Harvey Millard Horton of the 71st Infantry regiment of New York.
3. Porter to Day, May 24, 1898, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, National Archives, College Park, MD.
4. Porter to Day, June 7, 1898, ibid. Porter often sent several separate reports to Washington each day.
5. Porter to Day, June 7, 1898, ibid.
6. Porter to Day, June 3 and June 7, 1898, ibid.
7. “As Seen in London,” New York Times, June 19, 1898.
8. Porter to Day, June 21, 1898, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, National Archives.
9. Trask, War with Spain, 424–425.
10. Porter to McKinley, September 6, 1898, box 2, Letter Book, May 24, 1897–November 10, 1902, Horace Porter Papers.
11. Captain. A. T. Mahan, “John Paul Jones in the Revolution,” Scribner’s Magazine, July 1898.
12. Gowdy to Landis, January 2, 1899, refers to Landis letter to Gowdy, November 25, 1898, included in Stewart, John Paul Jones: Commemoration, 195–196.
9. THE MISSING GRAVE
1. “Thanksgiving Event in Paris,” New York Times, November 25, 1898.
2. Gowdy to Landis, January 2, 1899, included in Stewart, John Paul Jones: Commemoration, 195–196.
3. See the “Editor’s Preface” to the 1912 version, edited and annotated by John S. Barnes for the Naval History Society; and “Monthly List” of new titles in the Monthly Register, March 1, 1897.
4. Fanning’s Narrative, 44–45, 52–53.
5. James Fenimore Cooper, Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1846), 111.
6. “A Tale of the — of John Paul Jones,” Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous, and Monthly Literary Journal, February 1824, 54.
7. See Donald Darnell’s “Cooper’s Problematic Pilot: ‘Unrighteous Ambition’ in a Patriotic Cause,” in James Fenimore Cooper: His Country and His Art, Papers from the Bicentennial Conference, July 1989, ed. George A. Test (Oneonta, NY: SUNY, 1991).
8. Time Piece, November 24, 1797; friendship detail from de Koven, Life and Letters, 265.
9. The spellings of the mother’s and daughter’s names have been scrambled in different accounts. The book the family published based on Jones’s letters lists the “Janet” spelling for the mother, so I have gone with that, and assigned the “Janette” spelling to the daughter: Memoirs of Paul Jones (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1830), 3.
10. “Paul Jones,” Niles’ Weekly Register, July 1, 1820, reprinted from the New York Commercial Advertiser. The history of Jones’s letters, and what material Hyslop possessed and from what source, are blurry in the historical record. This is cobbled from the introductions to the British and American editions of Jones’s letters based on the Taylor collection, Memoirs of Rear Admiral Paul Jones (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1830), vi-viii; and de Koven, Life and Letters, viii.
11. Jefferson to Sherburne, February 14, 1825, reprinted in John H. Sherburne, The Life and Character of John Paul Jones, 2nd ed. (New York: Adriance, Sherman, 1861), ix.
12. “Art. XXXVII. Life and Character of the Chevalier John Paul Jones,” New-York Review and Atheneum Magazine, November 1825.
13. Life and Correspondence of John Paul Jones, 4.
14. Details on Pinkham’s role in renovating Jones’s boyhood home are drawn from “Lieutenant A. B. Pinkham,” Dumfries and Galloway Courier, July 30, 1834, by the unidentified editor of the newspaper, reprinted in the bound collection The Military and Naval Magazine of the United States, vol. 11 (Washington, DC: Benjamin Homas, 1836), 128–136.
15. Cooper to Simms, January 5, 1844, reprinted in The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper, ed. James Franklin Beard (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964).
16. “New Light Upon the Career of John Paul Jones,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 33, pt. 1 (1907): 692.
17. Jones, Paris, 212–213.
18. Ibid., 70–71.
19. Some details on Read’s life are available at the Virtual Museum of French Protestantism, www.museeprotestant.org.
20. “The Contributors’ Club: Paul Jones’s Funeral,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1890; Charles Read, “Le Héros d’un Roman de Fenimore Cooper,” La Correspondance Littéraire, March 20, 1859, 172–173; “Burial of Paul Jones,” Russell’s Magazine, June 1859.
21. Bulletin Historique et Littéraire (Paris: Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Fran¸ais, 1877), 136–141.
10. A BRUSH WITH FAME
1. Details drawn from the US District Court-New Hampshire website, www.nhd.uscourts.gov/ci/history/jdc.asp#JSS, accessed October 3, 2012.
2. While the authenticity seems uncertain (it’s based on self-reporting by previous owners of the paintings), the portraits were credited to King in Andrew J. Cosentino, The Paintings of Charles Bird King (1785–1862) (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978).
3. The portraits are in the possession of Sherburne descendant Susan Noftsker of Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was kind enough to share photos of the framed portraits with me.
4. Taylor v. Sherburne, case no. 13,805, reprinted in The Federal Cases Comprising Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, bk. 23 (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1896), 805.
5. See Sherburne’s introduction to John Wood, The Suppressed History of the Administration of John Adams (Philadelphia: Walker and Gillis, 1846).
6. Sherburne to Polk, September 30, 1845, reel 42, Letters of James K. Polk, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
7. “John Adams,” Southern and Western Literary Messenger and Review, September 1847.
8. Sherburne to Webster, January 8, 1851, manuscript 851108.1, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
9. Letter from Rush to Sherburne, reprinted in the second edition of John Henry Sherburne’s Life and Character of John Paul Jones (New York: Adriance, Sherman, 1851), 370–371.
10. Leicestershire Mercury, March 18, 1848.
11. Sherburne to Webster, January 8, 1851.
12. For this and the ensuing quotes, see letters among Sherburne, Sands, and Graham, in John Paul Jones, ZB files, Navy Department Library, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, DC.
11. THE SEARCH BEGINS
1. Harry J. Sievers, ed., Benjamin Harrison: 1833–1901, Chronology, Documents, Bibliographical Aids (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Ocean Publications, 1969), 26–28; Charles W. Calhoun, Benjamin Harrison (New York: Times Books, 2005), 162–163.
2. Harry J. Sievers, Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier President: The White House Years and After (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), 265
–272.
3. “Decoration Day in Paris,” New York Times, May 31, 1899.
4. Letter from Johnson to McKinley, June 7, 1899, record group 59, M79, roll 1039, National Archives.
5. Vignaud to Ricaudy, February 1899, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, France, volume 0598, National Archives.
6. Vignaud to Hay, June 28, 1899, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, roll 127, National Archives.
7. Vignaud to Marion Stuart Gombauld, Mayeren in Pau, France, November 15, 1898, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, France, volume 0595, National Archives. The letter was written in English, suggesting Gombauld was an American or British expatriate.
8. Vignaud to “Monsieur de Selves,” prefect of Paris, June 28, 1899, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, France, volume 0599, National Archives.
9. “John Paul Jones,” New York Times, July 30, 1899, and “W. Churchill Dies; Famous Author, 75,” New York Times, March 13, 1947.
10. Blackden to Taylor, August 9, 1792, reprinted in Life and Correspondence of John Paul Jones, 543.
11. The Sims detail is from “His Grave Has Been Found,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 14, 1899.
12. Vignaud to Alfred Leroux, August 22, 1899, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, France, volume 0599, National Archives.
13. Unless otherwise noted, the details that follow are gleaned from Porter’s report to Hay, April 29, 1905, and Ricaudy’s report to Porter, October 29, 1899.
14. Letter from Porter to Bailly-Blanchard, undated in the files but apparently written after Porter left the embassy, box 5, Horace Porter Papers.
15. David S. Barnes, The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle Against Filth and Germs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2006), 238–240.
16. Porter wrote several variations of his hunt for Jones’s body. This is from the forward to Letters of John Paul Jones (Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1905), 78–79.
17. “John Paul Jones’s Grave,” New York Times, Aug 4, 1899.
18. Porter to Hay, November 9, 1899, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, roll 127, National Archives.
19. “John Paul Jones’s Grave,” article dated October 28, 1899, published in New York Tribune Illustrated Supplement, November 12, 1899.
20. Memorandum by Charles W. Stewart, November 4, 1911, in which Stewart reports on interview with Porter in which Porter said Ricaudy had deceived him. Contained in John Paul Jones, ZB files, Navy Department Library.
21. Porter to Bailly-Blanchard, undated, in box 5, Horace Porter Papers.
12. DREYFUS, THE EXPOSITION, AND OTHER DISTRACTIONS
1. Legend has it that the act was oral sex. There was a touch of the black widow to Steinheil. Her husband and mother-in-law were murdered in 1908 during a purported burglary in which Steinheil was found bound and gagged. Police accused her of committing the killings and trussing herself afterward, but Steinheil was acquitted by a court, and she later moved to England.
2. Walter F. Lonergan, Forty Years of Paris (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907), 237.
3. Burns, Dreyfus: A Family Affair, 220–221.
4. Porter to Day, April 28, 1898, box 2, Letter Book, May 24, 1897–November 10, 1902, Horace Porter Papers.
5. For a good overview of the Exposition Universelle 1900, see Richard D. Mandell, Paris 1900: The Great World’s Fair (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967).
6. Details drawn from contemporary news accounts, particularly from the New York Times and the Chicago Daily Tribune, April 13–16, 1900.
7. “Day’s Events Told in Detail,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 15, 1900. The twentieth century, of course, would go on to become the bloodiest in world history.
8. “Disappointed Tourists,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1900.
9. Mende, An American Soldier, 234–236.
10. Marilyn McCully, Picasso in Paris: 1900–1907 (New York: Vendome Press, 2011), 15–25.
11. “Paris Exposition Awards,” New York Times, August 18, 1900.
12. Porter to Hay, December 5, 1899, box 2, Letter Book, May 24, 1897–November 10, 1902, Horace Porter Papers.
13. Nathan Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (New York: William Morrow, 1992), 334–335; H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America, rev. ed. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003), 154–185.
14. Miller, Theodore Roosevelt, 335, 376–380.
15. Morgan, William McKinley, 385–389.
16. Porter to McKinley, November 12, 1900, box 2, Letter Book, May 24, 1897–November 10, 1902, Horace Porter Papers.
13. AN ASSASSINATION
1. Unless otherwise noted, details drawn from Scott Miller, The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century (New York: Random House, 2011), 289–320.
2. To friend Herman H. Kohlsaat, quoted but not sourced in Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Personal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), 355.
3. Hay to Henry White in Newbury, New Hampshire, June 30, 1901, in Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, vol. 3 (New York: Gordian Press, 1969).
4. Porter telegram, September 7, 1901, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, France, volume 0603, National Archives.
5. John Merriman, The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siècle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), 206–207.
6. Hay to Jeune, September 14, 1901, in Letters of John Hay.
7. Mende, An American Soldier, 287.
8. “What Is Doing in Society,” New York Times, May 6, 1902.
9. Details drawn from numerous contemporary news accounts; Porter’s visit made for regular items in the society columns. Also, Porter to Wright P. Edgerton, April 21, 1902, NARA, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, France, volume 604, National Archives.
10. Congressional Medal of Honor Society, www.cmohs.org/medal-history.php; and “Army Medals of Honor,” New York Times, July 27, 1902.
11. “Mrs. Porter Dead,” New York Daily Tribune, April 7, 1903.
12. Mende, An American Soldier, 287, and “Mrs. Porter Dead,” New York Daily Tribune. Elsie was in Germany when her mother died, and her account of Sophie’s last — she swooned into her husband’s arms and died with her head on his shoulder—are suspect and likely romanticized. Contemporary news accounts described an unexpected and fast downward slide, and stated that General Winslow and Sophie’s brother, Henry McHarg, were also at her bedside when she died.
13. Porter to McHarg, April 6, 1903, box 3, Letter Book, May 24, 1897–November 10, 1902, Horace Porter Papers.
14. Porter to Hay, April 6, 1903, record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, France, volume 606, National Archives.
15. His absences are spelled out in a series of dispatches through the summer and fall contained in record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, France, volumes 0197–0198, National Archives.
16. Porter to Roosevelt, October 20, 1903, series 1, reel 33, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
14. THE NEGOTIATIONS
1. The letters sent out are contained in record group 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, France, volume 606, National Archives. Unfortunately, the embassy did not — at least keep—copies of the responses, which are lost to history.
2. Horace Porter, “The Recovery of the Body of John Paul Jones,” reprinted in Letters of John Paul Jones, 73. This is one of several Porter iterations detailing his search.
3. Details drawn from contemporary maps and photos, and “Relief of Madame Crignier, Message from the President of the United States to Congress,” doc. no. 101, July 11, 1921. Several earlier similar reports were made, as well, containing the same information in efforts to get the US
government to reimburse Crignier some 70,000 francs she had been ordered by French courts to pay her tenants after the buildings suffered damage in the search for Jones’s body. I’m drawing on this one because it was the last in the series and included the earlier reports.
4. Porter to Hay, January 24, 1905, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, roll 127, National Archives.
5. “To Find Grave of Paul Jones,” Detroit Free Press, October 18, 1903.
6. H.J. Res. 42 and H.J. 48, 58th Congress.
7. “Where John Paul Jones’ Body Lies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1903.
8. Porter to Hay, January 24, 1905.
9. French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand to Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, January 9, 1911, included in “Message from the President of the United States to Congress.” Porter wrote to Hay that the outlay was 25,000 francs; I presume the difference is the fee paid to Crignier’s architects.
10. Porter to Hay, January 24, 1905.
11. “Report of General Porter,” reprinted in Stewart, John Paul Jones: Commemoration, 62.
12. Porter to Hay, January 24, 1905.
13. Porter to Roosevelt, January 24, 1905, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, roll 127, National Archives.
14. Porter to Hay, January 31, 1905, ibid.
15. Porter to Roosevelt, February 3, 1905, and Porter to Roosevelt, October 20, 1903, series 1, reel 52, Theodore Roosevelt Papers.
16. “Researches of the Remains of Admiral John Paul Jones: Report of the Engineer of Mines, Inspector of the Quarries of the Seine,” May 9, 1905, box 5, Horace Porter Papers.
17. Porter to Hay, April 29, 1905, record group 59, Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, 1789–1906, roll 127, National Archives.
15. THE DIG AND THE DISCOVERY
1. “French Congo Atrocities,” New York Times, February 18, 1905.
2. “Many Gifts to Miss Porter,” Washington Post, March 3, 1905; Mende, An American Soldier, 291–292.
3. “Mende-Porter Wedding,” New York Times, March 5, 1905.
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